Mir ist zu Licht zum Schlafen
Too Bright To Sleep (2026)
Solo Exhibition

Mir Ist Zu Licht Zum Schlafen (Too Bright To Sleep) is a solo exhibition by Karen Dolev, curated by Mara Sporn‭,‬ created during Dolev’s six-month stay in Cologne. The exhibition presents a new series of pastel works on paper. Each drawing's palette is based on a painting from the Romanticism era, removing any trace of place and leaving only the transitions of color. In these works, color becomes a vehicle for mood and intimacy. Luminous pigments dissolve softly into one another, forming vibrating horizons that appear both present and ethereal.

The works draw on impressions of light, weather, land, and surroundings. As in Romantic painting, the landscape here serves as fertile ground for emotional expression, evoking a sense of melancholy and yearning. The works resist a fixed gaze or singular interpretation; they appear as mirages, suspended between environmental observation and inner space.

The exhibition title is taken from a love poem by Achim von Arnim (1781–1831) that refers to a central experience of Romanticism: Sehnsucht,  a state suspended between longing and overwhelm. The 'excess' of light appears in the title not only as a physical phenomenon, but also as a condition of emotional oversensitivity. This sensibility extends beyond early Romanticism and finds echoes in modern poetry. Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) described beauty as something emerging through ambiguity, spirituality, and the longing for the infinite. In Dolev’s works, these ideas surface not as historical references, but as a contemporary mode of perception.

The series consists of twenty two works, each carrying the title of one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from Aleph to Tav. The letters are not fixed linguistic signs, but rather open forms situated between sound and meaning. The spaces between the works create measured intervals, forming a sense of rhythm across the space.


From the exhibition text by Mara Sporn